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Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

I have not been to very many concerts in my life, but I would say over half of them were awful.

I'll mention a few, then it's up to you guys to inform the rest of us about awful live performers, so that we don't waste our money on them.

Pearl Jam - I was never a huge fan, but I liked them OK, and had a chance to see them for pretty cheap. I figured out why, because it was beyond terrible. Awful vocals, the drums were barely even audible, all I could hear was a distorted guitar and that babbling gorilla voice. I left before it was over and went to the car to drink myself to sleep.

Alabama - Is anyone surprised that I saw these guys at the West Virginia state fair for free? Anyways, something on stage shorted out during the first song, and all you could hear was an extremely loud acoustic guitar and shouting from the balding mullet captains on stage. I also left this one early, to go eat state fair corn dogs.

My Chemical Romance - What? I saw these twats? Oh yeah. Anyways, I was at Warped Tour waiting for Rancid to play (Rancid did NOT suck live) and these ass pirates came on and played that awful screeching emo-tastic music for a half hour straight. People were leaving in droves, except for the obvious 15 year old girls, and they actually stopped playing in the middle of a song because the bassist was playing an out of tune bass. God damn.

Bands that did not suck live that I have seen?

Social Distortion
Bad Religion
NOFX
Ted Nugent
Sage Francis
Wilco
Joe Strummer
Slick Shoes

Joined: Aug 05 2008 Location: CA Posts: 867

By far the worst live performer I have ever seen would be Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.

Edit: also Tricky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricky

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

Wow, you must have caught him on a bad day Muppet. Corgan rules.

Joined: Aug 05 2008 Location: CA Posts: 867

Cattivo wrote:

Wow, you must have caught him on a bad day Muppet. Corgan rules.

I have been to 2 of their shows, both were pretty bad.

I love the Smashing Pumpkins, however they are by far one of the worst live acts. Have you ever been to one of their concerts?

Joined: May 22 2008 Location: Goshen, VA Posts: 6544

I don't hate the Smashing Pumpkins, but they are obviously meant to be a studio band. Any time I saw them perform on a show or something it was pretty lame.

Billy Corgan is really good at putting an album together though, so that's why I will always sort of respect them.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 01:09 pm

McFly. The reason? Playback.
I haven't gone to their show in my city but I saw some footage. It was the same as their damn studio songs.

(This thread is now about GG Allin and how batshit stupid he was on his shows.)

Posted: Jul 06 2009 01:44 pm

I wasn't very impressed with Hole when they opened for Marilyn Manson back in the day, Courtney kept sing away from the microphone and rambling about fuck if I know between songs, just awful.

Joined: Oct 12 2007 Posts: 821

London After Midnight, god were these guys awful. There music is whiny, preachy without any substance behind it, sad attempts at being edgy while failing miserably with stupid song titles like: "America's a Fucking Disease", "That Pain Looks Good on You", and "Your Best Nightmare". And to top it they don't do anything at there shows, they just sort of stand there sucking the life out of everything. Thank god they were only an opening act.

I don't blame the next bands for not being up to par, they were suffering from opening act syndrome, where the venue doesn't help them set everything up properly usually causing one instrument to out power all the others.

The Birthday Massacre, really loud drums made it so nothing else could be heard.

Innerpartysystem, loops and synth were too loud, drowning out the vocals.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 06:58 pm

I've never seen them, but I've seen videos online of Avenged Sevenfold playing live and they totally suck. Even when their music was okay, their live performances were pure garbage.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 07:09 pm

By far the worst show I've seen was the American Idol tour while I worked a part time security job at the Tacoma Dome. Holy shit did I pray for death.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 07:23 pm

The worst opening band I ever saw was Carnifex opening for Obituary. They were just awful. Luckily, Unleashed was the next band on the bill, and they kicked ass. Beyond that, I've been pretty lucky, I've never seen another absolute shit band opening for a band I like, at least not that I can think of. Admittedly, Epicurean wasn't the best choice to open for Exodus/Kreator, but they weren't that bad.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 09:02 pm

joshwoodzell wrote:

My Chemical Romance - What? I saw these twats? Oh yeah. Anyways, I was at Warped Tour waiting for Rancid to play (Rancid did NOT suck live) and these ass pirates came on and played that awful screeching emo-tastic music for a half hour straight. People were leaving in droves, except for the obvious 15 year old girls, and they actually stopped playing in the middle of a song because the bassist was playing an out of tune bass. God damn.

MCR's stuff sounds about as good live as it does on the album. If you don't like their music, you're not going to like them live. And that goes against the entire point of the thread. In order for you to say that a band is terrible live, you have to first concede that the band itself is not wholly terrible. Otherwise, the thread is just "I don't like listening to live versions of songs I don't like", and that's terribly uninteresting. Anyway, the only MCR album that ever interested me was Welcome To The Black Parade. The rest is mostly just noise.

I saw Green Day playing "American Idiot" on some awards show back around 2004-2005, and it was fucking painful. It was sloppy, they were using shitty amps, and the vocals were buried, It was heartbreaking.

Posted: Jul 06 2009 09:36 pm

Oh, I forgot, as much as I love Slayer, this was painful to watch:

Also, Mastodon's live performance of "Oblivion" on Letterman was disappointing as well. Well, disappointing vocally, no complaints about the instruments.

And Brent's voice was horrible on their Download appearance a few years ago, like he was physically sick or something. YouTube it, you'll see what I mean.

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

Pearl Jam, was great when I saw them live. Then again, they released a live album from the concert I went to that sold really well (University Park).

Worst shows I've seen:
-Bob Dylan: Wonderful music, but you can tell he's getting old because he mumbled so bad that they jacked up the volume on his mic so that it blew your ears out, and you still couldn't understand him.

-Matchbox 20: Hate their music, but went because I got free tickets. They sounded bad, and their stage technician figured that the best way to get a crowd pumped was to blind them with a rotating spotlight (really, I had those purple splotches in my vision on my eyes the whole night). Only concert I ever walked out of.

Best Shows:

-Dinosaur Jr.: J. Mascis could fart on a guitar for twenty minutes, and still make it sound awesome.

-The Casualties: I think their lyrics and vocals blow on their albums, but they put on a really high energy rock show.

-Off With Their Heads: If you have even the most passing interest in punk, see these guys when they go through your town. You won't be disappointed.

Posted: Jul 07 2009 03:25 am

Pearl Jam was great live. I think I've lucked out and all my shows have sounded great. When I saw Anthrax I thought they sucked, but then I left my terrible nosebleed seats during the first tune and realized they were amazing.

Joined: Apr 14 2006 Location: Lake Michigan Posts: 3332

Ross Rifle wrote:

I think I've lucked out and all my shows have sounded great.

Same here, that's the only explanation. Either that, or I have low standards for live music. I enjoyed Corgan & SP when I saw them (although I do concede that they are more of a studio band - but I do have dozens of mp3s from live concerts that are incredibly awesome) and the one time I saw Green Day, they were outstanding.

People often criticize the Offspring's live shows too, but I saw them 3 or 4 times back when they were big, and I enjoyed myself each time.

In fact, the only bad memories I have of concert experiences revolve around crappy opening bands or annoying crowds.

Posted: Jul 07 2009 02:52 pm

Yeah, actually lauren Harris, Steve Harris' daughter, opened for Maiden when I saw them and their sounds was really thin, but they were still decent.

Posted: Jul 07 2009 03:57 pm

Oh yeah i forgot, I saw Macabre open up for Cannibal Corpse a few years back, TERRIBLE!! Oh, it's terrible!

Posted: Jul 07 2009 05:04 pm

._-1UP-_. wrote:

I've never seen them, but I've seen videos online of Avenged Sevenfold playing live and they totally suck. Even when their music was okay, their live performances were pure garbage.

I saw Avenged Sevenfold live when they were opening for Iron Maiden last year (also saw Lauren Harris, she wasn't too bad). Absolute garbage, and the bunch of drunken idiots clad head to toe in A7X merchandise and spending most of the time acting like assholes (right next to me, of course... at least they left after the Sevenfold set) didn't make their show any more enjoyable of an experience.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 08:19 pm

I was greatly disappointed with a Bob Dylan concert I went to.
He seemed uninterested, his voice wasn't audible, and the sound levels were horrible.
Can't understand why you would turn up the volume on a voice that doesn't give a crap.

Posted: Jul 26 2009 09:04 pm

enshinkarateman wrote:

Oh, I forgot, as much as I love Slayer, this was painful to watch:

That was so bad, I had to stop watching it. I didn't stop watching merely because I didn't like it; it was actually bad for my health and I became aware of that as soon as the singing started. Yeah, it's FREAKING HORRIBLE.

Joined: May 13 2009 Location: lowell, ma Posts: 289

One was Sick of It All. I saw them at Metalfest and they sucked so bad. They were yelling at the crowd like we were the shitty band. Another band that I actually used to like until they put out the same album 3 times was All That Remains. I also saw them at oe of the Metalfests I went to, and while the band sounded awesome, the singer live was painful. He's gotta have the most differet voice from album to live performance I've ever heard. Also I saw Tool once and for the 1st 20 minutes I was convinced it was going to be the best concert I ever saw. Then they proceeded to go into a 45 minute fucking jam while Maynard had his back turned to the crowd.

Posted: Jul 28 2009 08:36 pm

joshwoodzell wrote:

Pearl Jam - I was never a huge fan, but I liked them OK, and had a chance to see them for pretty cheap. I figured out why, because it was beyond terrible. Awful vocals, the drums were barely even audible, all I could hear was a distorted guitar and that babbling gorilla voice. I left before it was over and went to the car to drink myself to sleep.

Seriously? I've heard their shows are phenomenal, and I have six live albums by them and two live DVDs, and they seem like they'd be great in concert.

Probable Muppet wrote:

By far the worst live performer I have ever seen would be Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins.

See, Smashing Pumpkins is my favorite band, but I have mixed feelings about their live performances. I have a live DVD, two live albums, and a ton of live material from their archives. In the DVD and live albums, they sound downright horrible, but oddly enough, the music I've downloaded from the archives sounds much, much better (especially stuff from 1988, 1998, and 2000).

Also, I've heard on multiple accounts that the Killers sound terrible live. I've seen live performances of Keane, and, I dunno, they don't necessarily sound bad, per se, but when you sound exactly the same live as you do in studio albums, you kind of make a boring live band.

I've only been to one concert myself, but when I went to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, they were an absolutely spectacular live band. Karen O's voice actually sounds better than it does in studio albums (it was a lot more unrestricted when they played live), and their renditions of songs were completely balls-to-the-wall.

Posted: Jul 29 2009 02:57 pm

I don't really know anybody who sucks but I hate Lars Ulrich, his drumming is unoriginal, and he misses way too many beats live. Scott Travis on the other hand, is an awesome drummer.

Posted: Jul 29 2009 10:21 pm

Dii Infer wrote:

enshinkarateman wrote:

Oh, I forgot, as much as I love Slayer, this was painful to watch:

That was so bad, I had to stop watching it. I didn't stop watching merely because I didn't like it; it was actually bad for my health and I became aware of that as soon as the singing started. Yeah, it's FREAKING HORRIBLE.

I agree, as much as I like Slayer I had to stop watching it also. Jeez that was just bad. Maybe they knew it was for a lame NASCAR album and they just didn't give a fuck.